Thats insane but some dedication right there. From what I've been told by European friends the average working hours per week is ~30hrs/week and a lot of vacation hours, so I can see how they can dedicate so much time. I'd be interested to see how they progress on bosses. To me watching their wipes on Lei would be cool to see, just so see how they actually do this.

In the game, probably 8-10 hours a week on good weeks. Most weeks a bit less.

Only a very mild interest in raiding to be honest although if my guild wants me there and I think I can help them then I'm there.

For the record, this is pretty much how I've played the game for years now. No burn-out in sight although, in fairness, in addition to the relaxed schedule I like to go and play other MMO's now and then for a month or two. SW:TOR last year and Rift the year before that.

The main point is I have a lot of other stuff in my life besides video gaming.

Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2013-04-23 at 04:24 PM.

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Thing is that in the long run they might spend a whole lot less time than most people. They WILL get to the point where they can finish the instance in 1 raiding night of 5-6 hours rather soon. At that point they can raid 0-5hours/ week while most people will still be progressing and putting ~9 even more hours.

Guilds on my realm that are progressing/will still be progressing tend to raid 4x3.5hours/week... and they will do this to the end without finishing the tier.

Method had around 20 days of progression raiding. By the time they got Ra-Den down, they were able to clear the instance INCLUDING Ra-Den in 2 days. It's safe to say it's 1 day now.

The only difference is that average Joe will be pretty much locked in 4 days of the week for the next 4 and a half months, 3 and a half hours for 4 times a week.
Method did 3 weeks of progression and now they can pretty much have 1 raid night for the next 4 and a half months.

It's more effort at the start and more time sank overall but they are DONE. They won't have progress to do, they will steamroll the place asap. They have the rest of the time to do wtf they want.

world first guilds have at least 3-4 alt raids nowadays so the whole raid 1 day a week for months thing hasn't applied for a while

That sound more reasonable because its not a non stop pull and go time. But still, sitting around waiting for strats and checking numbers and tweaking things for min maxing counts as "playing the game".

That's not how it works either though. A break is a break, you can do whatever you want. Whenever we have a 10-15 min break during our progress raids, I usually go get some food and something to drink - clear my head etc.

Rogerbrown said in the Manaflask interview, that they typically did 2 big breaks during the day (for lunch & dinner) and then some 5 min breaks here and there. Sounds pretty reasonable for a WF chasing guild to me!

I just say this because I honestly think... the ammount of time "high end raiders" spend on the game... sounds unhealthy.

During my semester breaks, I often play ~20 hours per day.
But then again, I don't throw myself at the same encounter again and again...I can imagine that something like that can burn someone out really fast.

Remember a lot of the guilds seriously competing for world first are sponsored, essencially its their job to put those crazy hours in for those weeks during the world first attempts

Yeah, no. Taken from Paragon's blog:

And sorry to let you down, but despite all the credible sources at mmo-champion forums it turns out that being in one of worlds top guilds doesn't mean getting paid to play. Sure sponsors offer some perks, but actually getting paid to play? Wrong Game.

And to the hours they put in.

Excluding Wednesdays it's rare to see like 5+ people at the same time online.Sadly we are so not going to be a level 25 guild when 4.3 comes out. We only hit the daily guild xp cap like one day a week - two if some play arenas some other day. So much about "top guilds playing a lot".

I think I've read that when Paragon was still raiding in 25 mans in WOTLK and Cataclysm they raided for 4-6 six hours a week and that's what most people played during the week. Of course they have to pull crazy hours when competing for world first but rest of the time they do other stuff. I guess it's same for other top guilds.

Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler
(Blue Tracker)

Right. If you are trying to AE tank and a bad dps is attacking the wrong target and dies, we call that justice.

I don't see how anyone could fault world-first level raiders for the time they invest in the game. I equate it to any other pro-athlete playing any type of physical sport. I bet most Olympic competitors spend a similar amount of time training / preparing just before the games.

And that type of raiding schedule really is temporary. It will eventually calm down to a 2 night (or even 1 night) per week thing.

In the end, if they want to invest that amount of their time into racing for world first, that is their decision; we should not judge them based purely on that fact.

do people in these guilds not work? how do they afford to live? they cant make that much money from sponsors surely?

Originally Posted by endus

A thread about how hard it is being a white dude is not really a reasonable topic.

Originally Posted by Gabriel

You are assuming Cybran actually reads the articles he links.
I suspect he is actually some Soviet algorithm gone rogue, transmitting from some forgotten bunker, responding to keywords by googling them and adding "+bad" to the search query, and then just copy/pasting anything it comes across.

Well, this right here is one of the major things that separated the world class raids from the rest of us. Good god, even if we assume "only" 5days/week, that's still 70-80 hours/week. Compare to my 5 hours/week. Yeesh! No wonder they get so much more done.

Taking 2 weeks off from work isn't that big of deal. What else are you gonna use our vacation / sick days for?

i dont know, actually go on holiday with friends/family. i would hate to waste my holiday each year on raiding :\ but i suppose thats why im not in a top guild.

Originally Posted by endus

A thread about how hard it is being a white dude is not really a reasonable topic.

Originally Posted by Gabriel

You are assuming Cybran actually reads the articles he links.
I suspect he is actually some Soviet algorithm gone rogue, transmitting from some forgotten bunker, responding to keywords by googling them and adding "+bad" to the search query, and then just copy/pasting anything it comes across.